


What Takes Us Down

by skarlatha



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e06 TS-19, Jenner POV, M/M, Pre-Slash, RWG Mini-Challenge, Rick Actually Isn't Oblivious In This One, Rickyl Writers' Group, Shocking I know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5386343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenner knows he's doing the right thing by locking the doors and dooming the whole group to incineration, even if it seems like a monstrous decision. The world has gone to shit, and it's really the kindest course of action, to put these people out of their misery. But as the clock ticks down to decontamination, he remembers what he overheard the night before, promises passing between two men who only need a little more time to make them come true. And maybe those few precious moments he can give them are worth opening the doors for. </p><p>Written for a mini-challenge to write a one-shot Rickyl fic through the POV of a different character. Plus, includes a bonus "what Jenner whispered to Rick" reveal!</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Takes Us Down

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'ed and written in one continuous shot. Forgive me my mistakes! Title is from the episode this scene is from: Season 1 Episode 6, "TS-19," and some of the dialogue is from there as well.
> 
> Spoilers for Season 1 and I guess technically for the Season 2 Finale "Beside the Dying Fire" because it does give away the "secret" of what Jenner told Rick in "TS-19," which isn't revealed in the show until BtDF. I mean, I assume most people who are reading this have at least watched through Season 2, but be warned if you have not.

Science is observation.

Oh, there’s a lot of other, more complicated things that go into it. Measurements, data analysis, charts and graphs and formulas and maps of the way synapses mesh into each other, lights on a screen. Computers and glass and light and metal. But in the end, really, all science boils down to the human need to _watch_. To observe. To know.

He talks a big game, he always has. He’s more bullshit than data these days anyway, but who isn’t? No one knows what this is, where it came from, what it will have mutated into in a year, ten years, a century. The older woman, Jacqui, says it’s the wrath of an angry god, and maybe she’s right. Hell if he knows, anyway. It’s as good an explanation as any at this point, and just as useful as a scientific one would be. Which is to say, not useful at all, not really. A solace for cold nights spent alone, if that. There’s nothing that can be done at this point. Even if he found a miracle cure deep in the viral vaults in the basement of the building, there’s hardly anyone left to distribute it to, and not nearly enough resources left to replicate it on the scale they’d need.

This is, as he tells the group gathered around him, humanity’s extinction event. There’s nothing else to be done, and frankly he doesn’t see the point in refusing to go gently into that good night. Ashes to ashes, his pastor always said, and if there’s one thing about ash that’s good it’s the way it mutes sound, makes the world quiet and still. The clock will run down soon, and then he’ll be ash too. It’s fitting, really, and there’s dignity in silence, a dignity that the outside world doesn’t have anymore.

He’d locked the doors behind them all and he feels some regret for that. He can go through all the faces and see who’s ready to go--Jacqui and Andrea are certain about it, and even the two mothers have the question in their eyes, the same question he’d heard swirling through the halls before everyone else opted out in what had felt like a never-ending hurricane of crimson-splashed linen. _Is it worth it?_ they’d asked. _If there’s no hope for a cure, why put ourselves through the horror?_

He doesn’t have an answer for that. He never did. In fact, if his wife hadn’t made him swear to keep going, he would have been just another bloodstained heap on the floor with the rest of them.

There’s chaos when he tells them. The children are crying, their mothers hugging them close and shrieking at him, the men looking frantically around at one another and shouting, one of them leveling a shotgun at his head. He just stares at it calmly, because what difference does it make? In less than an hour, he’ll be dead either way. Ashes to ashes indeed.

He looks at Rick, asks him why it’s better to die out there than in here where it’s painless, where it’s quick and no one has to suffer, and Rick doesn’t have an answer. Oh, he says he does. They all do. There’s so much talk and so much noise and so much _bullshit_ and Jenner doesn’t give a shit about it. This is what’s best. Best for all of them. And they don’t see it now, of course they don’t, and they never will. But if he let them out--not that he _could_ , but if he _did_ \--they’d grow to regret it. And frankly he doesn’t want to die with that on his conscience. They’ll never thank him for this but they won’t suffer, and that’s enough. He meets Jacqui’s eyes and sees that she, at least, understands.

Observation. It’s what he’s good at, the only thing he’s ever really been good at. He looks around the room, watching the panicked running and screaming and begging, and all he sees is fear. These people don’t want to live. None of them do. They’re just afraid to die, and that’s not enough to move him.

Daryl is beating the heavy metal doors with a fireman’s axe--all pent up energy and desperation and no sense of hope, just a sense that if they’re all going to burst into flames anyway then he’ll do it fighting. Jenner looks over at him and watches dispassionately, observing his muscles and his stance and the way he swings the axe, the way it’s different from the way he’d be swinging it if he thought there was a chance of actually opening the doors.

Rick is in his face now, hissing out his empty pleas, begging for a choice, a chance. “Let us keep trying as long as we can,” he says, locking eyes with Jenner and willing him to change his mind.

//

_Everyone else was in bed, lying down on cots and couches, bellies full of wine and food and the euphoria at finding a safe haven. After the rest of the group had gone to bed, Rick had come and talked to Jenner, thanking him for the shelter, confiding in him that he understood how hopeless everything was. And now, as he headed back to his room, Jenner watched on the surveillance screen as Daryl slipped out of an empty room, his footsteps matching up with Rick’s for a moment before they both stopped, turned to face each other._

_“You goin’ to her?” the low-pitched voice murmured, and Jenner paused, eyes intent on the screen, observing the two men standing in the hallway._

_Rick sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking down at the floor as he spoke. “She’s my wife.”_

_“Listen, man, if you need a place to--”_

_“Daryl.”_

_There was silence then, ashes falling on snow, and after a long moment Daryl huffed out a breath. “I know. Sucks though.”_

_“Look, it’s just… Time. I need time. To--”_

_“I get it.” Daryl reached up for a crossbow strap that wasn’t there, then continued his movement to raise his hand to his mouth and bite savagely on his thumbnail. “What if there ain’t time?”_

_“There will be,” Rick said softly, then ducked his head to force eye contact with the archer. “You hear me? I’ll make sure there’s time.”_

_Daryl nodded slowly, letting his hand fall away from his mouth to his side, and Rick raised his own hand to cup Daryl’s face, his fingers hovering there reverently, one sinner to another here in the hands of an angry god. “I promise,” Rick whispered, almost too low for even the sensitive microphones to pick up. “Just wait for me.”_

//

Rick’s eyes are lit from inside with a feverish sort of hope, and Jenner pities him for that, for how hard that hope will be dashed one day when he sees his son, his wife, his archer bleeding from the neck from a walker bite. But far be it from him to make a liar out of Rick, to take away what little time he can give this broken spider-grass love that is blooming at the end of the world. After all, love is what’s kept him alive for this long, and he won’t keep them alive just because they’re afraid to not be, but he’ll give this to Daryl. This one gift, maybe the only one a man like that has ever received. Time. Not much of it, but maybe just enough.

He pushes the button. There’s an instant burst of action, people leaping to their feet and rushing for the door. He glances up at Daryl and sees the look of naked, blazing relief on the man’s face as he stops with the axe and looks back at Rick, his eyes raking over the man’s body with renewed purpose, renewed faith.

“Come on, let’s go!” Daryl bellows, waving an arm to get Rick’s attention.

Jenner looks back at Rick. “There’s your chance. Take it.”

“I’m grateful,” Rick says, and Jenner sighs heavily, letting his fingers linger on the button he’s pressed.

“The day will come when you won’t be,” he says, and he pulls Rick in, holding the man’s head close to his lips and he whispers urgently into the leader’s ear. “This thing… we all have it. We’re all infected. There’s no hope and nothing you can do to change that. But I’m giving you this chance so you can tell him how you feel. Don’t waste it.”

He releases Rick and the man takes a step back, looking dazed and conflicted, but the depths of his eyes are the blue of Daryl’s and Jenner knows he’s done the right thing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://skarlatha.tumblr.com)!


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